Financial Literacy Rating of Russian Regions - 2018

Project goal

Measuring the level of financial literacy in each of the 85 subjects of the Russian Federation

Improving financial literacy of Russian citizens

Assistance to the formation of sufficient financial behavior, responsible attitude towards personal finances, personal and family budget management skills among population

Research methods

The survey was conducted by a personal interview method in the region of the respondents' residence.

1,000 respondents were polled in each Russian region.

Data collection was carried out in July 2018

The methodology for measuring the Financial Literacy Index is developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Overview

Definition of financial literacy

Financial literacy is the complex of knowledge, behavior, and attitudes that enable a person to make competent decisions about personal finances and financial products.

The Financial Literacy Index is calculated as a sum of the values of the three particular indexes, each of that is based on the respondents' answers to particular survey questions.

The Knowledgecomponent reflects a person’s understanding of the basic characteristics of financial products (deposits and loans), inflation, and the connection between risk and return.

The Behavior component refers to a person’s ability to make rational financial decisions in everyday life.

The Attitudes component relates to a person’s orientation toward achieving long-term financial goals, taking into consideration a need to maintain a reasonable balance between spending and savings.

Value of the Financial Literacy Index

The Financial Literacy Index of the Russian population was 12.12 points with a possible maximum of 21 points. According to this indicator, our country ranks 9th among the G20 countries (the “Big Twenty”). The average grade for financial literacy across G20 countries is 12.7 points. Among the G-20 countries, the Financial Literacy Index is highest in France (14.9) and Canada (14.6), and the lowest is in Italy (11.0) and Saudi Arabia (9.6).

Level of financial literacy. Socio-demographic differences

Financial literacy is not related to a person’s age. An average citizen of the Russian Federation at the age under 30 years has accumulated knowledge, behavior and attitudes for financial literacy. By the age of 30, the Index reaches 12.5 and stays at that level until 45 years. After that, the growth of the Index stops and its gradual decrease starts with the rise of age.

Average values of the Index for men and for women differ slightly: that’s 12.06 for men and 12.18 for women. Up to 40 years, gender differences are almost invisible (within 0.15 points), but after 40 years the superiority of women becomes more evident (up to 0.5 points). This is due to the greater involvement of women in financial activities of household (planning regular expenses, organizing financing for dependents, etc.).

Marital status strongly differentiates the level of financial literacy: married people usually are much more literate than single/ unmarried ones. That takes place in the group of any age, but this is particularly obvious for the range of 40 to 50 years.

The most important condition for financial literacy is the level of human involvement in the economic / household activity. The level of financial literacy is higher among working citizens. At the same time, the Index for retired people is significantly lower than the average figures. The fall of the Index in the older age groups could be explained by low economic and financial activity.

Correlation between a letter code and financial literacy for each of the regions

Each region receives its own alphabetic code consisting of four characters: it is written as “A | bac".

The first symbol indicates the group of the region in terms of the Financial Literacy Index,

the second one refers to the group by the value of the Private Knowledge Index,

the third letter corresponds to the group by the size of the Private Index Behavior,

the fourth point relates to the group by the size of the Private Index Attitudes.

Data Presentation

The rating of financial literacy of the regions was presented by NAFI at the Russian Investment Forum in Sochi on February 14, 2019 at the session “Public Financial Literacy as the Basis for Financial Stability”. The session was attended by the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, the Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation Anton Siluanov.

The event was attended by the Director of the Department for International Financial Relations of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation Andrei Bokarev, the First Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia Sergey Shvetsov, the Governor of the Kaliningrad Region Anton Alikhanov, the Head of the Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova, the Chairman of the Russian Pension Fund Anton Drozdov, the Country Director and the Resident Representative for the Russian Federation, Europe and Central Asia of the World Bank Andras Horvai.

The results of the study were presented by the General Director of the NAFI Research Center Guzelia Imaeva.